How Your Contact Center Can Survive the Busy Season

Every business has its busy season. Whether your contact center’s pace is influenced by holiday gift-giving, seasonal travel patterns or the annual approach of April 15, it’s a natural expectation that your business’ activity will ebb and flow.

Call centers and support teams are strongly impacted by these seasonal rhythms. During your company’s busiest times your support agents are responding to overloaded phone lines, overflowing email inboxes, and eager customers who are awaiting support and resolution.

How can you help your contact center stay on top of the demands of your customers, and get them the customer support they need? Here are some suggestions.

Control the Rhythm

Do whatever you can to take control and determine the pace of your company’s support operations yourself. Consider carefully when to release new products, launch ad campaigns, or set new billing cycles. Even things as simple as a redesign of a billing statement will inspire questions in your customers, resulting in an increase in calls to your support center.

Help your support team by planning these updates with them in mind.

Plan Ahead

It takes time for your support center to prepare itself to answer questions and resolve new issues for your customers. Call centers need enough lead-time to make sure they’re ready for the deluge of support calls. Support teams need to:

All of these tasks help your call centers serve your customers better, solidifying their relationship with your company.

Use Automation

Technology and automation are important tools for optimizing your support center’s connections with customers. Look for the wide variety of ways automated support can make your support center more effective. Automation can optimize your call center’s task in many ways:

Ensure agents have customers’ account and product or service information

Make sure agents have quick access to most commonly asked questions and how to resolve them

Adjust guided support paths based on previous resolutions

The appropriate use of technology means that your support center can provide better resolutions and service to your customers.

Rest assured, your support center can survive and meet the high demands of the busy season. With a little advanced planning and strategic action, your business can use those busy times to increase positive customer interactions and boost customer satisfaction.